When I was at high school I always wanted to be the sweet girl. You know, a bit like Sandy in Grease … or like Samantha in Sixteen Candles. But that was not to be … I was always the academic one. While everyone else seemed to have all the fun, I was the serious one lost in my own world of making up stories all with happily ever afters.

I lived in a city but I always dreamed of living by the water. Being a Cancerian, water is my element and as I wrote my stories, water always inspired my creativity. I loved that scene in Grease where Sandy and Danny got together at the beach, just like From Here to Eternity. So I read sweet romances, dreamed of holidays by the ocean… and watched those boys.

On to university and sitting in lectures, my head was still full of sweet romance stories and not the heavy going stuff I was studying in English literature. I studied the period called the Romantic era which was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement. Was it this study that instilled a love of romance in me… to appear later in life in my published category romances…or was it the reading of my mother’s romance novels throughout my teenage years that inspired my desire to write of sweet romance?

Don’t get me wrong, I loved reading the classics and more literary works and I did write a brilliant thesis on stream of consciousness. But when I wasn’t studying I would read any sweet romance I could get my hands on.

Then came career…and marriage…and kids. When I had a hard day at the office, I would go home and lose myself in a sweet romance. So fast forward to today…kids grown up, I retired young and got to follow my dream. Six years later and there are now twenty-seven Annie Seaton books published or about to be published!

So did I start with sweet or sexy?

I sat down to write a sweet romance, but those sassy heroines and bad boys hijacked my sweet intentions. It must have been the places I took them, when my desire to live by the water kicked in — the yachts, the tropical islands, the gorgeous beaches. The smell of coconut oil, the crashing of the waves, and the glistening tanned bodies set the pages sizzling.

But my love for sweet romance still beckoned so I decided to also try my hand at writing my own sweet romance. I took the wanting, the lingering glances, the brief touches and put them into a romance that reflects the trials and tribulations of living and loving in the twenty first century and brought in a strong sense of home, community and family, rather than the emphasis on the sexy.

And my readers have lapped it up.

Today’s generation are interested in real people, and their trials and tribulations. Short category romance novels give an instant fix. Is this why we write and read romance? Why so many of the books on the digital bestseller lists are category romance novels? Part of the reason is human nature. Most readers are interested in the ups and downs of establishing a relationship with another person. I have taken my heroines and heroes to tropical islands (Holiday Affair) an Italian island (Italian Affair) and to the wilds of the Outback (Outback Affair)/

Recently I have taken them to the Outback and the Prickle Creek Farm series has been fun to write.

Oh, and as well as writing my sweet romances when I grew up I got to live by the beach. When I’m not sitting in my writing chair gazing at the Pacific Ocean, you can find me sailing in my favorite place in the world, the Whitsunday Islands, where I set many of my stories,

I am proud to be an author of sweet romance and I love my writing life. What do you prefer to read? Sweet or sexy?

Or somewhere in between?

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Unadventurous Lissy McIntyre believes choosing the right man should be based on common sense. She would never pick a rolling stone like Nick Richards for long-term love. But a red-hot, tropical romance? Yes, please. He’s got a swoon-worthy body and his kisses leave her senseless. A tropical holiday romance might be what she needs…

When Nick moves to his new job in a small country town, he’s stunned to discover that his no-nonsense neighbour and co-worker is the beautiful woman he spent a memorable night with on a tropical island. He’s unaccustomed to staying in one place for long, but he just can’t seem to stay away from the intriguing woman. Nick doesn’t do forever but having Lissy around has him thinking maybe he could…

Holiday Affair is the first book in the Affairs series.

Each book in the Affair series is STANDALONE:* Holiday Affair* Italian Affair* Outback Affair